French nanny pleads guilty to stealing from family

Steve Butcher

A French live-in nanny who flew to Melbourne and fleeced her client of $747 of items will fly home a convicted thief.

A court heard Chantelle Durand, 24, arrived in Australia in February and started work in Melbourne earlier this month with "fully unsupervised access" to the victim's house.

Prosecutor Senior Constable Bonnie McHenry told Melbourne Magistrates Court on Monday that Durand on April 9 visited Phillip Island with the victim, her daughter and the girl's 11-year-old friend.

Senior Constable McHenry said the children bought a set of earrings and a necklace for $20, but later one of the girls reported the items missing.

On April 18 at the home of one of the victim's friends, Durand complained of a stomach ache and entered a bathroom to rest from where property was later found to be missing.

Senior Constable McHenry told magistrate Mark Stratmann that when challenged by the victim on Sunday, Durand emptied her bags which revealed various items of clothing, nine wrist watches and the earrings and necklace.

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Durand was arrested and on Monday pleaded guilty to three charges of theft.

Asked by Mr Stratmann what her client intended to do with the items, defence lawyer Jacqui Hession replied: "Nothing. That's the problem."

Ms Hession said there were more expensive items accessible to her client, who arrived on a working visa through an au pair agency, than penguin-shaped earrings.

She said Durand, South Korean-born and adopted at five months by a French family, had no intention to sell the items nor was greed an issue.

Ms Hession suggested Durand, who intends soon to return to France where she had completed a business-law course, be put on an undertaking to be of good behaviour, but Senior Constable McHenry regarded that sentence as "too low" for the offences.

Mr Stratmann regarded the charges as a serious breach of trust and he told Durand that "you may be on a working holiday but you cannot steal".